Corridor #8

Korridor No. 8

(Bulgaria, 2008, 74 mins)

HDCam

PROD: Martichka Bozhilova
SCR: Boris Despodov
CAM: Boris Missirkov, Georgi Bogdanov
ED: Gergana Zlatanova, Boris Despodov
MUS: Petar Dundakov

• www.corridor8.info

The “corridor #8” of Boris Despodov’s ironically subtitled “non-road movie” (the film is as dryly humorous as the subtitle suggests) is a long-promised, much-disputed and much-delayed European Union-mandated highway designed to link the Black Sea with the Adriatic via the countries of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. The only problem seems to be that the Bulgarians, Macedonians and Albanians don’t want anything to do with the whole project...

Despodov brings together an unforgettable group of characters from all three countries--politicians, bureaucrats, plain folk living along the proposed corridor--and, while never condescending to them or taking the easy road of caricature, lets them give their reasons both for and against the thruway. But he also never hesitates to offer pointed, witty asides, as it becomes obvious that old Balkan animosities rest just a few millimetres beneath the nonexistent asphalt. The project was cancelled once and for all in 2007... “As a child growing up in the Balkans, the first thing you learn is that you live at a crossroads… Only later do you discover that the roads linking this crossroads barely exist… Using the road as a symbol and a starting point, the film tells the story of our region, interweaving a variety of cultures, religions and contradictions… Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania have turned their borders into impassable fortresses, dividing people who actually inhabit a very small territory…”--Boris Despodov

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